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Topic: vinegar for mites (Read 8241 times)

I know what you are saying, but we are talking about federal regulations. I am a lawyer. My area of practice does not include federal agricultural regulations, so I don't know what the laws actually say. However, I would never assume that the regs are logical. :-D Does anybody know a citation for the relevant regulations? I can read them myself, but I don't want to go the law library to research this.

Finsky may be right that this has not been tested in studies, but it appears a study needs to be done. If it works, it works, whether or not a university scientist has done a study. (I do agree that studies are the best way to find out whether it does work.)

Varroa has been 30 years in Western Europe and 20-25 years in USA. In Russia the end of Soviet Union colapsed many things like beekeeping.

University scientists mean that they have skill to to work (like layers in the city court ) and the State pays them fee that they can do work whole day and can use perhaps during their life their skills, They have opportunity to visit in other countries and get best information. They have tools like insemination instruments.

Scientifich researches means that you have a method and another guys follow that method and look, if they get same results. So we get general information. No need to invent same wheel. Or if you succeed in some thing, what was the reason. In Arizona they have succeed to get mite tolerant bees, but no one knows why? One good explanation is that it is a calm branch of Africanized race. That explanes that on industry level no one want to breed them further.

But first of all, beekeeping researchers do work which serves beekeeping and agricultural industry. Hobbiest applies what they want. It disturbes nothing.

The duty of researches is to find all the time best practices. Not methods which work, but best ones. They are developing all the time. The method must be relevant for honey production industry, because professionals do not get earnings by executing just activities. That is why Russian bees casted in early phase in practive to relieve out howit goes on industrial level.

There are tens of methods in use to handle mites. That is not question which work. The question is, which is best to use. Where you get information. Europe have made varroa researhes many years with hundreds of hives and now USA make same work 5 years later.

Varroa is so dangerous to my money purse that I do not want to sacrify my honey yield to "Virtual Evolution". I have knowledge and experience enough in this issue.

Maybe M. Bush's system works in mite question but in honey production level it seems to be invalid. He says that he has very small winter clusters. It means that bees have destroyed the worker cells which have varroa inside. So colony is too small in spring to make pollination duty or get good honey yield. Like it has been researched, if varroa contamination goes over certain limit, hives will not go on economical level. It is same with swarming or chalk brood. If you loose 20% of you workers, you cannot run you beekeeping business any more.

That guy with acetic acid says that he lost 18% of his hives. That is really bad because with better methods it should be lover.

Of course "every boy" may do his own studies. You reserve 20 hives for 3 years. When you leave some hives under mercy of mites or wether, you need not extract honey from those hives. Why hobby beekeeper make these thing when universtity beekeeprs have hundreds of hives and manoy to make what ever fool things. - Yes, and where are rearches studies? Often they get nothing from their researches. That is olso risk when you make new thigs. You get nothing.

In private companies when they start development projects to make better business, only 25% meet success. That is the backround when you doom people when they try something new.

To learn beekeeping that no bad surprises happen any more, it takes 3-5 years to learn for best guys, and most of hobbiest learn never and they give up.

The failure is a good place of learning. Often you accept failures as normal happenings, but some day when "cup of learning" is full, you decide to do something to your problem.

To me after these years the most difficult thing is to find best pastures for hives to get maximum yield. It is difficult every year. Mite is not problem at all. It is my friend. Mite protects that what ever bees will not mix my good genepool in my yards. 20 years ago it was very painfull to breed bees because drones from feral hives put upside down my achievements (German black race). It was a littel bit same as you have Africanized bees.

What ndvan want to do, is beebreeding. It is not that you go to shop and get some small cel foundations.

>"Well broccoli, spinach, rhubarb have oxalic acid in them, and they are "more natural" than pickles. So if your logic holds for acetic, it should hold for oxalic acid too."

There could be a difference. It is clear that just because a food product contains a chemical component, that you cannot necessarily add the component to other foods. For example, apple seeds contain cyanide, but you surely could not say that cyanide can be added to other food products.

However, acetic acid could be something that is approved for use as an ingredient, such as in pickles. I suspect (but don't really know) that commercial pickle makers use watered down acetic in lieu of vineger. If that were okay, maybe acetic acid is not subject to the same rules as oxalic acid.

Does that make any sense at all? Also, does anybody know the source of these regulations?

Sure does. I was just playing devils advocate. :evil: Seems like some are proclaiming acetic as the only "natural/safe" answers and I have trouble with that. Comparing 5% vinegar to 25% acetic to 100% oxalic. Even cyanide is not going to hurt you if diluted enough.

It is my understanding that if something hasn't been approved by what ever government agency (pest control board?) that approves these things then it is not legal to use the stuff as a pesticide. Now just what is a pesticide?

Thanks for that link. As I understand it, the regulations apply to any product being used as a pesticide. It is the nature of the use that matters. If you think about it, that really is the only way they could write regs on pesticides. The first step in the analysis would be to decide what it is that is being regulated. That explains the broad reading of the term "pesticide." Its wierd, but its logical in its own way.

Second, once something is a "pesticide," its got to be registered.

Third, there are exemptions for active ingredients that are known to be safe (such as some herbal stuff) and inert materials that are known to not be hazardous. That part of the rules gets confusing, because it looks like some of the safe inert materials are approved for some uses but not others.

After wading through the text, I think that acetic acid vaporizing would be legal. It was listed in the appendix B section as a safe inert material. That would be a reason for US beeks to use it instead of Oxalic.

I want to stress that this is not intended to be legal advice to anybody. This is not my practice area, and I do not even know if that link provides current info. about the law. I may have misread it, and you can read it yourself. Anybody who wants to wants to use acetic could call their friends at the EPA for their view-- good luck getting a person on the phone for that one.

What may need to happen is that the EPA may need to add oxalic acid to the safe, inert materials list. If they would, then there would be no need for registration of the product as a pesticide. Since you can buy it in hardware stores, it does not appear to be heavily regulated for other purposes. I would think that with all the press about hive collapse and mites, now might be a good time for somebody to push that. Are there any national beekeeping lobbying organizations? What are they doing?

Went to my last bee yard today 27 beeyards to be exact hit them with vineger vaporizer in the fall. out of all hives lost 18% not bad .lost about ninty% three years ago that was before I started using the cyclone.ps not going to argue about what works and what dont it works for me and im sticking with it. :-D--GNHONEY--

Not trying to argue either, but what do contribute the 18% loss to?

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